German patent 900 056 describes a method of manufacturing cushion webs from a support tissue, e.g. of jute, and a pad layer, e.g. of palm fibers, coconut fibers, hair or the like, in which the attachment strips formed on the lower side of the support tissue by hook needles attached at a needle board are continuously interlinked and/or simultaneously twisted. For this purpose the hook needles are stitched into the fiber layer from the side of the support tissue at a certain rotary position of the needles. In this rotary position the hook points to the transport direction at which the support tissue and fiber layer are moved under the needle board. Finally, the needles are drawn out of the fiber layer and the support tissue in the same rotary position so that the fibers grasped by the hooks form loops which are drawn through the support tissue. Finally, the hook needles are turned in their axis by 180.degree. and after a forward feed of the support tissue together with the fiber layer about a stitching pitch, the needles are again stitched through the support tissue and the fiber layer. Then the needles are again turned back about 180.degree. into their original rotary position and are drawn out of the fiber layer and the support tissue. Thereby they form new fiber loops, which are drawn through the fiber loops formed in the preceding stitching cycle. After feeding the support tissue and its fiber layer about a further stitching length, the fiber loops formed first are fixed on the support tissue by the successively formed fiber loops. The process then repeats cyclically. Thus, a needle rotation only takes place in the conditions in which the hook of the needle has completely left the fiber layer and the support tissue, respectively. According to German patent 904 621 it is also possible by this method to provide mats for pads and the like having linked or twisted holding loops without the arrangement of a support tissue.
Velours and felts can easily be manufactured by means of the needling technique, also in structured design, it is, however, not possible at the moment to manufacture fleeces as thin as a tissue, since a sufficient fiber compound does not result by needling. On the other hand, there is a desire for mechanical methods on the basis of non-weaving, by means of which knitted fabrics or textiles similar to a woven material are to be manufactured, which are at least similar to knitted fabrics and tissues regarding their rigidity and the textile drape and regarding their appearance. This desire exists in view of the fact that a much higher productivity can be achieved by the needling technique than by the knitting or weaving technique. In the needling technique textile webs at production velocities of a some meters of web material per minute can be manufactured, whereas the production velocities during knitting or weaving are only a few centimeters of web material per minute.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,453 discloses a needle machine for needling a fiber fleece web, in which two needle bars arranged successively in the fleece transport direction are subjected to a reciprocating up and down motion component by a common drive, said motion component being directed perpendicular with respect to the fleece support. Furthermore, the needle bars may be set via a second drive to a reciprocating motion extending in parallel to the fleece transport direction, so that by superposition of these motions the needle bars can be set in a motion which depending on the extent of the motion strokes is circular or more or less elliptical, when seen transversely to the feed direction and in parallel to the extension of the fleece web.
In co-pending U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 09/098,245 filed by Dilo et al. on Jun. 17, 1998, a needle machine is described, in which two rigidly coupled needle bars in addition to the two motion components described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,453 are provided with a third motion component which extends perpendicular to the fleece transport direction, whereby the stitching pattern can further be influenced.
By means of these various possible needle bar movements in three directions orthogonal with respect to one another the stitching pattern can be influenced to a great extent. Some wishes are, however, not fulfilled, in particular in the already described aspect to additionally influence the fiber structure of the ready fleece.